OPPORTUNITIES OP THE FARMER. 6T 



upon the mind when contemplating the future, and how immense 

 the responsibility resting upon us, to shape that future aright. 

 And step by step, with the expansion of territory and the in- 

 crease of population, is the diffusion of all knowledges. Sciences 

 are within the reach of the school-boy, no longer locked up in 

 libraries, but disseminated through schools, colleges, periodicals 

 and papers ; literature is peddled as industriously, from house to 

 house, as tin-ware. Art has its multiplication table, in photo- 

 graphs and chromos ; the ballot-box turns every man into a gov- 

 ernor, and even fools rush in and appear to do very well where 

 formerly angels feared to tread. 



It is only ignorance of the true principles of agricultural sci- 

 ence, and the best modes of agricultural practice, that leads 

 men to the adoption of a wandering manner of life, and a scar- 

 ifying of the soil instead of thorough cultivation. The two 

 systems of farming — high and low, or thorough and superficial 

 — are like the two systems of civilization — the Asiatic and the 

 Egyptian — which preceded the Hebrew culture. The former 

 induced a wandering, migratory sort of life ; the latter was di- 

 rected to things of practical utility. The study of the seasons, 

 the labors demanded by the cultivation of the earth, the neces- 

 sity of providing against the overflowings of the Nile, the fore- 

 thought and contrivance thus imposed upon men, and the early 

 discovered convenience of an interchange of superfluous com- 

 modities, opened a career to industry, commerce and the arts, 

 which essentially modified the Egyptian civilization, and through 

 that surrounding nations, and eventually, through the Hebrews 

 and the code of Moses, future ages and its influence, through 

 our pilgrim fathers, extended to this continent. 



Agriculture, the industries and commerce are the tripod on 

 which stands the great nation overruling this western world ; 

 and if one leg of the tripod is weakened, the whole fabric is 

 shaken and may totter to the fall. Our concern is with agricul- 

 ture directly ; and the mission of New England farmers is like 

 that of the ancient priestess, to keep the sacred flames always 

 burning before the altar, that the torches elsewhere which 

 go out may be rekindled, and to send forth a refined and im- 

 proved civilization and culture which shall restore the waste 

 places, and not only prevent barbarism from obtaining the 

 ascendancy, but, by scientific cultivation, cause the earth to 



